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Great childrens DVD

Our youngest daughter recently got given a TV so we bought her a DVD player for her bedroom and got her a couple of DVDs, this is one of the DVDs we got her which was free by collecting points from the Disney Movie Reward scheme, you can buy the DVD at places such as Play and Amazon and it costs about £5. I will warn that I have told the storyline in the review below but as I am pretty sure no child will be reading this I personally see that this is fine and allows an adult to decide if this is the correct DVD for a child.

The DVD comes in the usual style of DVD case and on the front of it are all the characters from the show holding paintbrushes, the cover is nice and bright and attractive for little ones. On the back it tells you that the running time is about 70 minutes which is makes each episode an ideal length for Emily to watch one per night in bed.

When it first loads it has a rainbow coming across the screen and then there is a language selection sat on top of the rainbow, there is English, Francais, Norsk and Dansk to pick from and the icon to select with is the shape of Mickey's head although it is coloured pink rather than black, I think this is quite cute. The disc has fast play so it starts automatically but it goes through all the trailers first so we just select the menu button to bypass it.

When you get to the main menu the music from Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse is playing and then there is another rainbow across the screen but this time the options are Play All, Episode Selection, Bonus Features, Set Up, Sneak Peeks and Fast Play. If you don't select an option within about a minute the DVD sets off by itself.

The first episode is Mickey's Colour Adventure where the colour all drains away from the clubhouse so that everything goes black, white and grey, Emily shouts no at the TV when this happens. They introduce a rainbow colour machine and Mickey and the gang have to collect 6 different items of 6 different colours to restore the power in the rainbow colour machine and they are not allowed to use their own clothing for the colours. As with in every episode Mickey has a number of tools to help him in his quest and this time he has, safety scissors, a handy fishing rod, a shovel and the mystery mouse catool.

They start off in the clubhouse and your child is asked to shout when they see something red, Emily loves shouting the colours at the screen and I like that the episode helps children to learn their colours as Emily has ben struggling with her colours a little. They end up finding a red ball in Pluto's mouth and then an orange whistle hanging on the door but then the colours drain away again further from the clubhouse so they have to go outside where they find Minnie watering her yellow flowers. Of course int he end they manage to collect items in all of the colours that they need and they managed to restore the colours in the clubhouse.

The second episode on the DVD is Mickey's Art Show, Mickey and his friends are making things for the arts show but poor Goofy has never made anything for a show before and he is upset as he doesn't know what to do. The mouse catools in this episode are a pogo stick, a tea cup and saucer, a radio player and of course as always there is a mystery mouse catool. Daisy has painted a picture but she needs some green paint so she needs to mix it, the show explains to children exactly how to mix paint and shows what happens when they are mixed, Goofy jumps up and down on the pogo stick with the paint that needs mixing in a jar which Emily finds hilarious. Goofy tries to make a painting like Daisy but it doesn't go very well so he move on to find another things he can make for the Art show.

The episode goes through different items for Goofy to make such as making pots where they teach your children about 3D shapes and drawing a self portrait using simple shapes to make up the picture which teaches children about 2D shapes. Goofy tries to make a pot but it comes out banana shaped and then he tries to draw himself but it looks like a sort of evil Goofy, Mickey tells Goofy that none of it matters as long as he has had some fun making the art and they all put their items on show.

The third and last episode on the DVD is called Minnie's Rainbow, Minnie Mouse spots a rainbow so they go out to take a look at it and sing a song about the colours of the rainbow which Emily likes to sing along with. The gang all decide to go and find the end of the rainbow and find the pot of gold which is supposed to be there. They get their mouse catools for their journey and in this episode they have a tennis racket and ball, a giant fan, a magnifying glass and the mystery mouse catool.

The gang follow signs to find their way to the end of the rainbow, they have to make a number of decisions along the way to work out which signs they need to find to get to the end of the rainbow and they involve your child in making the choices. Leprechaun Pete tries to stop the gang along the way and they have to work their way through obstacles. They finally reach the end and meet the Leprechaun and he has hidden his pot of gold to stop them getting to it and then he can't remember which four leaf clover he has hidden behind. Goofy finds the pot of gold and they all get a reward for helping but to their dismay they find the pot of gold is actually golden cookies!

The episodes follow the same structure as the ones you see on TV which I like as it is familiar for Emily, each episode starts with Mickey Mouse introducing himself and going into the clubhouse with the magic words. At the end of each episode your child is asked a couple of questions about what they've just learnt such as asked about numbers or shapes and then finally Mickey says goodbye. Emily knows the beginning and the end of the episodes so sings along and likes to wave goodbye to mickey which is sweet.

Emily love Mickey Mouse's clubhouse so I knew she would love this DVD and she will watch it every night for a week or so and then change DVD but she very quickly goes back to this DVD. We are often sat downstairs on a night and we can hear her shouting "oh toodles" which is quite sweet, Emily loves to join in with the DVD and always shouts out the answers that they ask for in the episodes which I like and think the DVD really does interact with children.